Ye wei = a recent Chinese fad where exotic items are consumed with no regard for their rare, precious quality or the detrimental effect on the environment.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Oct/Nov 07 issue of Perfect Sound Forever

Sorry for the cross-promo but I just wanted to tip you off about the latest issue of Perfect Sound Forever. Here's the goodies offered there now:

AGITATION FREE Krautrock interviewLuul Ulbrich "cannot answer the question of how Krautrock was born, although he was deeply involved in shaping it. 'It's always complicated with categorizations. Primarily, we saw ourselves as a rock band, as psychedelic rock. We never called it 'krautrock.' There's a nice explanation in France, 'musique planante,' which means 'music of the spheres.' Maybe it's just experimental rock music.'"

ANGELS OF LIGHT Michael Gira interview and confessionsFor five fine albums, Michael Gira has led a changing cast of musical Angels through light and dark realizations of songs merging dream visions and imaginative reality abstractions. This time round he started out backed by his young protégés Akron/Family, trying to keep things simple. Then an urge to embellish took hold and more musicians laid down parts, most strikingly Eszter Balint's droning violin

GREG DULLI His angst & his artFor its raw exploration of alienation, loss, and rage, Sly Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin' On can be seen as a companion to John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. The Afghan Whigs’ 1991 album Gentleman dared to bond with those two frazzled, gut-wrenching masterpieces to make up a trilogy, and began a creative odyssey that expanded on that raging wrestling match with appetite.

DAVID JOHANSEN InterviewFrom New York Doll to solo years to Buster Poindexter to movie star to Harry Smith and back to being a Doll again, David Johansen has hopped around roles the way that most people change clothes and yet somehow kept his sanity. We interrogate him to find out how he sorts out the many lives that he's led.

MAXIMO PARK Romance & disconnectRomance may or may not exist, but if it does, it's up to the individual to define it. Relativism, while immediately practical, produces a kind of disconnect that in turn produces a potentially soul-numbing cynicism that is contrary to the very notion of romance. British pop rockers Maxïmo Park examine different tensions that signify this postmodern disconnect between individuals and romance and love. Romance and love in the postmodern world turn out to be very slippery things indeed.

OUTSIDER MUSIC The inside out of...The term "Outsider Music" is relatively young. It was first coined by radio personality and music enthusiast Irwin Chusid in an article he wrote in 1996 for Pulse! Magazine. He described it as "a mutant strain of twisted pop that's so wrong it's right." "Outsider music can be the product of damaged DNA, psychotic seizures or alien abduction; medical malpractice, incarceration or simple drug fry," Chusid wrote. "Or chalk it up to communal upbringing, demonic possession or bad beer."

QUEERING CLASSIC ROCK Testerone implicationsThere's a reason why classic rock (which back then at least, was an ostensibly a male adolescent mass entertainment), invokes gender variance. Long before Lou Reed crooned about transsexuals on the AM dial, rock's will to shock manifested itself with long hair (prompting the derisive question, "Is that a boy or a girl?"). This rebellion wasn't merely theatrical or rhetorical: in an age when Vietnam and the draft suffused American consciousness, for a male to adopt any appurtenance of femininity was a clear breach and rejection of military readiness.

TERRY RILEY His middle yearsColfax, California, 1935. Who in that NoCal hamlet would've guessed that a major influence on modern music had just been christened? Unlike religious icons, angels don't appear when artists leave the womb and commence their slog through the muck of the world, but that's where Terry Riley nonetheless saw his advent, soon trafficking along a childhood not terribly dissimilar to that of most other young males in America. He did, however, display early on a strong bent for music. Still, little reveals itself historically with very much clarity in his first decade and a half. Colfaxians did as adolescents tended to do since time immemorial: goof around, have fun, discover a little bit of the world, and try to figure out why the hell anyone was even put here in the first place.

SAMPLING From concrete to hip-hopThere are many opinions on sampling. Some view it as a fresh, post-modern take on music; music had taken us only so far and sampling helped to shake things up, re-evaluate the past, and use it to create exciting new music. Others view it as simple thievery, a refuge for the untalented to hide behind. What inspires both these views? Is either correct?

SURF BALLROOM Pilgrimage to history- site of Buddy Holly's last concert"On our way north, we passed through a hamlet in Iowa named Clear Lake. Seeing the city limits sign made the shiver that was in my spine, jump out of the top of my head. Being the amateur music historian that I am, I knew precisely where the sense of dread was radiating from. Its epicenter was in the middle of this quiet settlement; a small, unassuming venue named The Surf Ballroom. A voice inside me said, "You absolutely must stop here on your way back home." I was in total agreement with myself."

RALPH TOWNER Segovia's Mutant Brother- Part 2Part 1 looked at the nascent Oregon as an ironically inadvertent subversion within the Paul Winter Consort, further paradoxical in its production of the best work Winter's ensemble would ever see. Topping the paradox, the sub-group wouldn't release its first LP until many years after the attainment of firm regard in the music world (as we saw, Music of Another Present Era wasn't really Oregon's true first set of recordings). Unparalleled in its creativity, the band quickly grew in critical and consumer eyes and ears, first nailing down a quartet signature sound that later attempted to induct new members... elegantly failing every time. Oregon was ever and only best as a foursome, a chamber jazz effort embodied by Colin Walcott, Paul McCandless, Glen Moore, and Ralph Towner... most especially Towner.

VINYL ANACHRONIST The end is near"After twenty-five years of digital playback, I finally heard a CD player that sounded as musical as any analog rig I've heard, regardless of price. The amazing part is that it wasn't an SACD player, or a DVD-A player, or any of the so-called high-resolution digital formats. It was an ordinary CD player, and it played ordinary CD's."

WEST CORK CHAMBER MUSIC Classical festival"The Irish love music of almost any kind, so it seemed logical to consider the possibility of music festivals. What happened is a variety of them, devoted to various musical categories: early music, jazz, contemporary and traditional Irish being among the first suggested. They were so successful there are now other varieties, as well. The West Cork Chamber Music Festival comes pretty close to being all things to all people. They certainly try hard."

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